Long prior to King Camp Gillette's invention of the safety razor and long prior to his contemporary Charles Dana Gibson's creation of the clean-shaven "Gibson Man", to complement his better known "Gibson Girl", man has been wet shaving with a blade and softening his beard and face by the use of either a soap or a soap preparation. Of course, it goes without saying that to this date wet shaving is still, by far, the preferred method of removing whiskers, albeit electric razors have made their way into the marketplace with commendable success.
Wet shaving by lathering with a soap or a soap preparation is by no means without its drawbacks. For example, so-called hard water often interferes with the lathering and beard-softening properties of soap by forming insoluble calcium salts of the fatty acid component of soap and by curdling the lather. Of course, curdling cakes the razor and the sink (wash basin) making removal of the lather that much more difficult.
Despite advances and improvements in electric or dry shavers, many people prefer to remove hair, facial for men, legs and underarm for women, using a blade, shaving cream and water primarily because it is believed that a closer cut of the unwanted hair is achieved.
Despite the improvements in shaving creams, razors tend to become dull rather quickly especially due to hard water which is generally found throughout the world. Although such shaving creams are formulated to produce a rich lather, and contain emollients and fragrances to soothe the skin and impart a more desirable fragrance, they do not overcome the basic problem caused by hard water, supra. Commercial water softeners which functionally sequester hardness-causing components in water (e.g., CaCO.sub.3) are not always within the reach, financially, of certain of the shaving public. Certain regions of the United States of America have, on the average, up to about 500 and more parts per million (ppm) hardness-causing components in their tap water than other regions of this country. For example, while the New England area has weighted average tap water hardness of about 30 ppm, states bordering the Great Lakes have a weighted average of about 175 ppm.
It follows, also, that an improperly cleansed razor blade, which still has caked lather on it, will lose its delicate sharp edge readily by virtue of the corrosive nature of soap and soap preparations. Hence, the initial desirable razor slip property of a new blade readily gives way to razor drag, necessitating frequent changes of blades. This, obviously, substantially increases the cost of wet shaving.
Interest has, in the past, concentrated on: better metals for razor blades, bonded blades, twin-edge bonded blades, improved shaving creams, pre-shave lotions, etc., all the while tolerating the aforementioned difficulties attending the use of soaps and soap preparations. In short, nothing really innovative relative to wet shaving with a blade has surfaced.
As will be seen hereinafter, I have discovered what, in my judgment, is a unique shaving aid.